First, the commission's decision to send a letter to the party is an indication of how seriously the BNP is now being taken. It was one thing to have a constitution describing membership along the lines of being "strictly defined within the terms of … 'indigenous Caucasian' and defined ethnic groups emanating from that race" (does that mean something?).

But for a party with access to several hundred thousand pounds per year with an expanding publicly funded staff to espouse such requirements is another matter. The only thing more bizarre than the idea of the BNP not having a policy on being an equal opportunities employer is the fact that it probably never occurred to them that this might create a problem.

The letter the party received this morning gives it 30 days to provide written confirmation that it will undertake various major reforms including rewriting its constitution, diverting from its longstanding aversion to non-white people radically enough to begin recruiting them, and showing that it will be able to provide services to constituents in a way that does not discriminate.

Quite apart from the challenge of getting non-white people to apply for jobs with the BNP – don't all rush at once – these are by any standards serious measures requiring radical departures from the BNP's proud history of racism.

Not that the BNP is renowned for taking "legal stuff" too seriously. "Don't mind breaking the odd race law, or being accused of it, you know, inadvertently," Nick Griffin said recently. True to form, when the Guardian contacted the BNP today for a response to the news it faced legal action it stated it was "not too bothered".

If this is the party's idea of responding to legal challenges then we can probably look forward to a bumpy, and no doubt expensive, ride through the court system. That would resolve the party's dilemmas about what to do with its Euro-budget – spend it on defending avoidable and apparently indefensible legal challenges.

Which raises another interesting dimension to today's news – is a party with a fundamentally racist doctrine remotely viable in a country that has, among other things, a statutory watchdog on equality and discrimination armed with shiny new enforcement powers?

The commission has been involved in claims of racism against political parties in the past – in 2007 it supported a Labour councillor who claimed he had been discriminated against in an election fraud debacle. But today the commission acted alone, seeking legal advice, against the BNP.

Why now? "Because the BNP has now got MEPs and has been elected at a national level," the commission's legal director, John Wadham, said this morning. "That raises concerns for us."

"Concerns" should be an understatement. The still unanswered question is why it took until now, two parliamentary seats and a whole lot of constituents later, for these concerns to prompt action. Still, better late than never.